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Consultant Blog: "We are bringing real value to the company, its testing and its customers"

11/01/2018

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It’s great to know that my own testing work will have a direct impact on the way the business operates more efficiently in the future

Jason Mensah is a Spartan Consultant at Canada Life in Potters Bar. Studying Computing and Computer Science at De Montfort University before completing Sparta Global’s graduate programme in Richmond, Jason has transformed a passion for IT into a flourishing career in technology. We caught up with Jason to find out how his work has positively impacted Canada Life’s business, procedures and people.

How did your adventure begin with Sparta Global?

I graduated in manual testing from Sparta Global’s Richmond Academy in 2015 and have been a Testing Consultant at Canada Life since January.

The Sparta Global Academy is an incredible environment to learn in. At university you spend all of your time in lectures and the way content is fed to you can be really bland. At Sparta Global learning was a lot more interactive, fun and technology focussed. It really played to my strengths and interests, but helped massively when I started working at Canada Life. I hit the ground running and was able to do my job right away because I had gained important practical experience.

As a testing consultant at Canada Life, has your work made an impact?

Canada Life didn’t really have a testing team or strategy in place before I joined, so it’s been amazing to see how the testing procedures I am helping to introduce have improved the efficiency of its automated systems.

By planning and executing daily tests and introducing special testing requirements, we have been able to assess processes differently and identify issues that could have otherwise been missed. We operate within a ‘what if?’ environment that is crucial to ensure every automated process functions seamlessly and successfully when it is eventually rolled out.

I’ve also seen the benefits of bringing new agile processes and solutions into a team of IT professionals. We’re introducing new ideas – such as stand-up desks and stand-up meetings – that are helping to breathe new life into the company and change how its people operate. While the team members I am working with are very experienced in the industry, they have not had the opportunity to explore agile ways of working. It’s been great to share some of those skills.

Is there a particular project you are most proud of?

Right now I am working on a project that will automate the process of on boarding new Canada Life members. The current manual processes are slow and can be difficult to manage but the new automated system will make the process quicker and easier to carry out.

The test conditions we have introduced means that Spartans can cover every manual testing eventuality, providing a level of accuracy that couldn’t be there in previous projects. It’s great to know that my own testing work will have a direct impact on the way the business operates more efficiently in the future, and new members will benefit from their information being accurately and safely stored online. We are bringing real value to the company, its testing and its customers.